Ultimate Marvel Team-Up #1

Background

With the huge success of the recent Ultimate Titles, both Spider-Man and X-Men, and the impetus added by the recent X-Men and upcoming Spider-Man movies, surely the incentive to match Spider and Wolvie in an Ultimate comic book must be huge.

So, Bendis generously gave a little of his time to create this master-piece for us... Not!

Story Details

This ain't hard, Bendis does it by the numbers...

1. Anti-mutant sentiment scene.
2. Wolvie vs. Sabretooth round 1 (Sabbie receives near-mortal wound)
3. Obligatory Spidey vs. back-alley punks scene.
4. Sabretooth vs. Wolvie chase scene.
5. Spidey worries if he might be a mutant.
6. Mysterious phone call from Wolvie to unidentified powers.
7. Wolvie vs. Sabretooth round 2 (Wolvie receives near fatal wound)
8. Spider-Man intervenes.
9. Another dig about bigotry and racism.
10. Funny scene at the end.

General Comments

What a load of bollocks. Formula-driven tripe, which wouldn't even pass muster in "X-Men Movie Part 6: Sabretooth's Revenge". Bendis adds nothing to the characters, and adds nothing to the Ultimate world that we couldn't have happily done without.

Dark agents of mysterious masters. Claws and blood. Moderno-populist self-flagellation about past bigotries. The only worthwhile pages in the book were the last two, where Peter tries the "Wolvie" look back at school.

Overall Rating

Not surprisingly, this book has NOT taken off in the way that Ultimate Spider-Man did. If there's any justice in this world, then it's because the story is rubbish, and not just because Marvel didn't do the same marketing hype!

One small mercy - there was only one cover format! That, and the last two "coda" pages were the only redeeming features this book could offer.

Bendis can do much, much better than this! 1.5 webs.

Footnote

Oh, did you notice that Spidey killed somebody? Not very nice!